Conquering the Queen

by Ava Sinclair

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

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  Conquering the Queen

  By

  Ava Sinclair

  Copyright © 2016 by Stormy Night Publications and Ava Sinclair

  Copyright © 2016 by Stormy Night Publications and Ava Sinclair

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published by Stormy Night Publications and Design, LLC.

  www.StormyNightPublications.com

  Sinclair, Ava

  Conquering the Queen

  Cover Design by Korey Mae Johnson

  Images by RomanceNovelCovers/Jimmy Thomas and 123RF/mppriv

  This book is intended for adults only. Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults.

  Chapter One

  “I’ll remember you.”

  Avin looked hard at the man who’d blocked her path and was now yelling just inches from her face.

  “Slattern! Whore!”

  He had scraggly hair, a scar running down his cheek, and a nose that had been broken at least twice. His eyes were wild as they met hers, but Avin did not look away, not even when he spat in her face.

  He was bold, bolder than most. As the guards reached for him, he raised a hand to strike her, but before he could, he was sent sprawling into the other villagers lining the streets.

  When another guard nudged her forward with the hilt of his drawn sword, Avin took one more glance at the man who’d just accosted her.

  I’ll remember you.

  And she would. She’d remember him, and the old woman who’d told her she deserved what she’d gotten, and the young woman who’d yelled how she wasn’t so high and mighty now. Avin would remember each and every one of her former subjects who now dared to mock her. She’d remember them. And she’d make them pay.

  They were rounding the corner, beginning the last leg of the long, humiliating walk that would end at her former home. Something landed with a splat in between her naked breasts. Avin didn’t look down; she didn’t have to. She could smell the fresh horse manure, could feel the green-brown stain of it running down her ivory skin. A rotten tomato followed; it made a wet thud as it impacted her temple. Its aim elicited howls of congratulations to the thrower, and jeering laughter. Avin made note of the buildings, the street. One day, everyone who lived here would answer for fouling her.

  Now she raised her eyes, and blinked back the tears that shrouded her view of the castle. Water glittered in the sunlight as it dripped from the rapidly thawing ice that had covered battlements for months and months. Winter was fleeing, and Avin knew her cheering, jeering former subjects believed her usurper had chased it away.

  As she mounted the steps, a breeze caressed Avin’s naked skin, mocking her with its warmth. Water from the melting ice flowed from above like rain. She was forced to walk through it as she approached the castle door. She shivered, and briefly took comfort in the familiar sensation of cold.

  How many times had she walked through the doors of this throne room? She could not count. Her earliest memory was entering behind her parents, the overbearing, calculating king and quiet mother she could barely remember. She’d been afraid then, and would be more afraid years later when, upon her father’s sudden death, she had walked this path as a young, unprepared queen. But by then, the hurt had set in, turning her heart to the same ice that coated the castle walls.

  She could feel Xander’s eyes on her before she even looked up to see him staring from where he sat on the throne. Her throne. She waited for the ice on her heart to crack, waited to feel something—terror, longing, regret—but felt nothing. And for this she was glad.

  He’d aged in the way men do when they grow into their full strength. The brawny arms that had once held her were even more muscular now, as were the legs defined by the doeskin breeches. His black hair, shorn short, was as dark as hers was fair. The muscular chest she’d once traced with her fingers was covered with a gray doublet. At the shoulder was the pin bearing the Ravenscroft house crest; it clasped a purple cloak.

  The guard beside her pulled her to a rough halt and stepped back at Xander’s raised hand. Xander was continuing to stare, as were the other men in his company. Avin recognized his father, Lord Reginald. The old man, his face still set in the permanent haughty sneer she remembered, did not even try to hide his contempt.

  Xander rose from the throne and walked down from the platform. When he reached her, his eyes swept slowly up and down, and Avin tried not to imagine what he was seeing—filth on a naked body as pale as thawing ice, a body as pale as his was bronzed, a body he knew as well as his own.

  “Avin of Windbourne.” Xander’s voice was deeper now, and it held no affection. “When I last saw you, you were a sweet, helpless girl. Now here you stand, helpless once more.”

  She said nothing. She revealed nothing as she silently added his name, and the name of his sneering father, to the list of those who would pay.

  “Kneel.” The word was spoken firmly. She stared straight ahead, her eyes fixed on a point behind the throne as she ignored him.

  “Kneel.” He issued the command again. Avin continued to stare. When she didn’t move, Xander nodded to the two guards who’d ushered her in. “Take hold of her, each by an arm.”

  The men obeyed, and she let them, passively resistant. Xander walked behind her, lifted the curtain of heavy, matted hair over her shoulder, exposing her back and buttocks. She could hear him walk away. When he returned, he was holding a cane.

  “I’ll only give the order once more,” he said. “Kneel.”

  She remained silent, and concentrated on the thudding of her heart as he stepped behind her. The guards were stretching out her arms, holding them out and up so that she could not sink down or get away.

  The hiss of the cane reminded her of a snake, the bite its strike. She saw a blinding white light as the line of pain exploded across her bottom. She tasted blood as she bit her lip to keep from screaming.

  “Kneel.”

  She swayed between the guards, but remained defiant.

  Swish! Crack!

  He still remembered just how and where to strike. Hot tears stung her eyes, blurring her vision, and she breathed hard through her nose, sucking on her bloodied lip as she swayed.

  Swish! This blow bisected the other two. Somewhere through the fog of pain, she thought she heard herself whimper, but the sound was eclipsed by Xander’s telling her she could end it by just crying mercy. Was that a hint of frustration she heard in his voice? Good. It strengthened her.

  Swish! Now she did cry out, but did not kneel, would not kneel. She could feel the welts blooming on her skin, could feel the throb intensifying along with her dread of the next blow. She tried not to struggle, but her body writhed in desperate self-preservation.

  “Kneel…”

&nbs
p; “No.” Her voice raspy with pain.

  Swish! Crack! Swish! Crack! Swish! Crack!

  Each blow was like a burn, going deep into her skin. She went limp, overwhelmed, sinking to her knees. She had not knelt, but Xander treated her collapse as if she had. The guards continued to hold her by the arms as he walked in front of her.

  “Look at me.”

  Another order. She ignored it. He could not hit her bottom now, not effectively, not with her in this position. But he could do something else, she realized. His fingers were cruel as he squeezed and twisted a nipple, hard and then harder and harder until she finally faced him.

  The pain in her eyes did not diminish the defiance. But she was on her knees, and looking at him. He’d won. For now.

  “That’s better,” Xander said.

  “Is it?” she replied, surprised at how steady her voice was given how loud her body was screaming. “Won’t only my death make it better in your eyes?”

  Now he was silent, his dark brown eyes unreadable. Dark eyes in a dark face. Had that face always been so shadowed? Would the stubble hide the dimples when he smiled? Avin pushed the thoughts away. Those days were gone. He would smile at her no more. He was her enemy now.

  “Death?” He was answering her question. “No. Death would bring no satisfaction to the subjects. Your cold, self-serving rule brought them to their low state. You forgot your place as a leader, which is to serve your people. Seeing you learn humility, being forced to serve, will be far more satisfying than your death could ever be.”

  Xander took a step back and gestured to the side. “I’ve brought you something.”

  She’d not noticed it when she entered the throne room, but there it sat atop a pillow-topped pedestal. It was her crown, taken from her the day her own soldiers stormed the castle and dragged her from the throne. Xander picked it up.

  “It’s been adapted for a new purpose now,” he said, and Avin watched in stunned silence as he grasped and pulled the narrow gold circle, opening it.

  “Lift her hair,” he said to one of the guards, and rough hands pulled the heavy tresses away from her neck as Xander put the crown around her neck and bolted it shut. Against her will, Avin began to shake.

  “That’s more fitting, I think,” he said, tipping her chin up and looking down into her eyes. “What was once your crown will now be your collar, and you shall wear it as my slave. You shall wear it until you learn what it is to submit. The people you once ruled will now watch as you sit at my feet, and are only fed by my hand. If you disobey me, you will be corrected, with your punished bottom displayed from the castle window.”

  He clapped his hand and two stoic-looking older women entered the room. Avin recognized them as nurses who’d once tended the children of nobles in Windbourne. Now they moved to either side of her and clutched her by the arms as the guards had done.

  “Take her to the room in the tower,” Xander said. “See that she’s bathed and dressed. Summon me when she is presentable.”

  The two women curtseyed and pulled Avin to her feet. She did not resist. She did not look back. She simply walked away, back straight, bottom burning, her former crown heavy around her neck.

  Chapter Two

  Xander stood by the window, looking out at the woods beyond the castle walls. The trees were starting to bud. Birds wheeled and chased one another on mating flights. A memory came to his mind, of a beautiful blonde dismounting her horse and running into a patch of trees as he called for her to stop.

  “It’s dangerous in there! Come back! I said come back!”

  But she’d not listened. She’d reminded him of a silver wood nymph as she’d darted into the Ravenswood. He’d cursed as he leapt from his own horse to give chase to the pale flash among the tangle of trees. When he caught up with her, he’d found her kneeling at the base of a huge ironwood, pulling an herb from between the roots.

  “Get up from there! You’re a princess, not a wise woman.”

  “Even a princess should have a pastime.” She’d stood and turned, presenting her find. “Mine just happens to be making elixirs. Look, Xander! It’s milk thistle! Just a bit of it can restore a nursing mother who’s gone dry. It is also helpful to wet nurses with more than one babe to feed.”

  “Bah, women’s stuff.”

  “You’ll be glad for this one day should we have our own lusty son to feed, and I lack the milk.”

  She’d smiled and breezed past him. Xander had planned to warn her that running from him again would earn her a thrashing. But the thought of Avin nursing his child at her breast had presented so fine an image he’d forgotten to be stern.

  His father’s voice drew him roughly back to the present.

  “She should not be given the comfort of the tower room with a feather mattress.” Lord Reginald Gawen scowled at his son from beneath bushy gray brows. He lifted his cup of wine, sloshing some over the side as he gestured toward his son the king. “That haughty bitch should be in the dungeon on a bed of straw, hungry and alone and mired in her own filth. And that’s where she should stay until being taken to the village square to have her head separated from her body.”

  Xander turned from the window to face his father. He did not have to ask from where this deep hatred sprang. As stunned as he’d been by Avin’s betrayal, his anger had been a shadow to that of the man who’d worked so tirelessly to join the houses of Ravenscroft and Windbourne. If he had a gold coin for every time his father had wished Avin dead, he could build a house for everyone in the kingdom.

  “Let us not repeat her mistakes in our rage, Father,” the king said. “After months of hardship, the people need security, not a display of cruelty. Avin’s head on a pike would satisfy the anger of a few, but the majority would be unsettled by it. Say what you will, they did love King Leon, and she is his daughter.”

  At the mention of the former king of Windbourne, Lord Reginald spat on the floor.

  “If I may offer my perspective.” The voice that spoke was soft, and commanded attention in the way loud ones rarely do. As the owner emerged from the shadows, both men turned to give him their full attention.

  Cynric Blane had been advisor to House Gawen since before Xander was born. A soft, balding man with a middle-aged paunch and effeminate features, he only spoke when he had something instructive to add.

  “Xander is quite right in this case, my lord. To kill Avin of Windbourne would be to sever the line of a beloved king. But for the King Xander to take the woman they believe betrayed her father’s legacy through misrule, to master her before their very eyes, to teach her… well, this will elevate Xander in their eyes as a father figure not unlike the one they lost.”

  “King Leon was as much a backstabber as his daughter!” Lord Reginald was on his feet, his voice booming through the hall. “He took our lands and drove us into the south.” Reginald was pacing now, growing more and more agitated as he spoke. “And the next thing you know, he’s dead and his daughter ascends to the throne? Oh, that part I’ll wager he didn’t plan, but I’ll take no pity on him. He was a false king who begat a deceitful daughter.”

  “Don’t worry that Avin will escape punishment, Father,” Xander said. “I plan to see that she lives in a state of obedience.”

  Lord Reginald glared at his son. “Perhaps if you’d instilled proper obedience during your courtship, she’d not have dared join her father’s scheme,” he spat. “She used your love to weaken you.” He sat forward, his mouth a grim line in his wrinkled face. “How can you not be sure it won’t happen again?”

  Xander wanted to tell his father he had never been weak with Avin, that he had been teaching her to be obedient, that he’d seen her quivering submission, had tasted it, that to this very day he could not understand how or why things had gone the way they did. But he did not feel like explaining. He had an official coronation to arrange, and a kingdom to run.

  “I can be sure,” he said firmly, “because I love her not. What she did killed my love. It was buried under winter’
s frost the day she took the throne, and no spring can thaw it. She cannot weaken me.” He paused. “But I will weaken her.”

  “See that you do,” Lord Reginald growled. “I want to see her broken. Harden your heart, Xander. Bring her to heel.”

  Xander responded with a curt nod, but then left the room before he was forced to remind his father who was king.

  He walked out onto the covered archway connecting the throne room to the castle’s living quarters. Pigeons fluttered and resettled on the beams above his head, cooing softly. Down below, workers were repairing damage done to the outer walls of the courtyard during the long military campaign. Servants with carts of food navigated their way around the construction and puddles of water created by the rapidly melting ice. More produce was arriving from the south, grown in the warm spring that had finally reached Windbourne. Soon planting would begin in the fields beyond the castle walls. When the cold came again, the storehouses would be full and the citizens would weather it in comfort and peace.

  “A word?”

  Xander turned to see Cynric approaching, noting how quietly Cynric moved despite his rotund build.

  “Quiet as a cat,” the king observed. “And as cunning.” He shook his head. “Let me guess. You’ve come to repeat my father’s advice.”

  “Not to repeat it. Only to refine it.” The advisor sighed. “He’s right, you know. The captive queen must be tamed. You must be careful with your feelings, however.”

  “Save your warnings, Cynric. As I told Father, I no longer love her.”

  Cynric smiled patiently. “I’m not talking about love. I’m talking about anger. If you do not tame the beast within yourself, you’ll never tame her. You’ll only humiliate her.”

  An image flashed through Xander’s mind. Riders approaching with news of an attack. His best knights—loyal men—ambushed and dead, buried on what was to have been his wedding day. Spires of smoke as he and his surviving soldiers had been forced into retreat. The small painting of Avin he’d thrown into the river the day he’d learned she’d become queen.